


All or Nothing

by The Manwell (Manniness)



Series: Two out of Three [3]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Healing, M/M, Post-Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-14 15:26:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8019244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manniness/pseuds/The%20Manwell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duo and Trowa retreat to their house in Clifden to heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Immediately follows “Tag & Other Backyard Games” – Trowa’s Silencer requires a very specific kind of reassurance after being attacked and incapacitated.

Coming home to the house in Clifden did not bring me solace.  The promise of peace and quiet was tantalizingly within my reach, yet somehow beyond my grasp.  Fury still burned and twisted my guts, but my skin felt like a snow-covered field – cold and easily marred.

Duo watched me.  He made no attempt to hide his concern.  “Bed?” he asked in a tone that meant he intended for us to sleep.  I shook my head.  Sleep was little more than a small, dark den in which small, weak creatures sought refuge.

I did not want to hide.

I wanted to burn.

“Wait for me,” I told him.  It was a given that he would.  Duo would wait for me regardless.  That hadn’t been why I’d said the words.  I’d said them so that Duo could hear my voice, hear the rage I was trying so hard to control.

He nodded.  “However long it takes, babe.”

I turned away and shouldered open the bathroom door.

Taking a shower did not soothe me.  I suspected that nothing so superficial would.  Given how vulnerable I’d been – Tasered and left in a heap on the floor in the dark – there was no quick fix, no magic formula that would make me feel right again.

Although, I had an idea about where I’d like to start.

I spent the minimum time and effort required on washing and rinsing… and then I spent three minutes – three minutes that I would have preferred to spend in bed with my husband – preparing myself for the achievement of that very goal.

I was still drying my hair with a towel when I strode, completely naked, across the hall and into our bedroom.  Duo had laid himself out on the bed, one arm tucked behind his head, his body utterly bare.  He was running his fingers idly up and down his hardened length.

Oh, yes.  We were on the same wavelength.

“You waited for me,” I approved, tossing the towel onto the top of the headboard and climbing over him, straddling him.

“You bet I did.”  He placed one hand on my thigh and drew the other out from behind his head to cradle my cheek in his warm, callused palm.  “What do you want, baby?” he offered.  Offered his body, his touch, his voice, himself.  He would give – I could take – whatever I wanted.

I felt a tingling shudder sweep down my spine as I savored the question: what did I want from him?

“As much as you can give me,” I replied and, without preamble, I wrapped my still-wet fingers around him, lined myself up with his flushed and distended length, and lowered myself onto him completely.

“Holy fuck!” he exclaimed.  “You—!  No lube—!  Not ready—!”

Ah, my Duo.  Always so concerned, so obsessively careful that he not hurt me when he’s inside me like this, fitting us together, giving me that last piece of the puzzle which completes me, the key which locks all my shifting parts together in one solid and immutable whole.

“You didn’t time my shower?” I bit out, savoring the feel of him so deep, so hard.  I throbbed around him.  The sting was beautiful.  Perfect.  “There ought to be three minutes unaccounted for.”

“Gah…!  Still—!”

“I used lubricant.”  On myself.  It wasn’t much but the burn was even now fading into that tender-flesh-over-hot-steel feeling that could make me shiver.  I rolled my hips and successfully put off the argument he seemed determined to have _now._   We would have it later, I was sure, but now was for _this._

“Oh, baby,” he moaned and I knew I had him.  His hands – unavoidably rough, not at all like they’d felt back when he’d been cursed to ride a desk day in and day out – swept over my skin.  I loved his calluses.  I loved the burning trail of sensation – invisible flames – they left in their wake.  I loved the rash of red on my skin when he was too rough, too obsessed with caressing the same place on my body over and over again.  Tonight, he couldn’t seem to decide what part of me to torment.  My shoulders, my chest, my sides, my stomach, my thighs, my hips… he touched me like he was checking for injuries, like he was never going to get enough of me.

I leaned back, braced myself on his thighs and introduced him to tonight’s rhythm.  _Ohhh, yes._   He rubbed against me so perfectly just like this.  With every thrust, stars exploded into novae across my vision.  It was so perfect it hurt.

His hands began circling toward the one destination they hadn’t visited yet and I opened my eyes, shook my head.  “Not yet,” I told him.

He moaned and his fingers dipped down.  He gently coaxed my balls away from where they’d drawn up tightly against my body.  “Return the favor?” he rasped, spreading his thighs behind me.

I reached back blindly, running a hand down the inside of his thigh until I could oblige him.  And once my task was done, I leaned forward, braced myself above him on my arms, tightened myself around him, and picked up the pace.

His arms came around me, his hips snapped up to meet mine.  Oh, perfection, perfection, _perfection._

“Trowa, baby, oh baby…”

“Nuh…!” I agreed, loving this-him-us more than my body could physically stand.  I groped for his hand.  “Again,” I pleaded, tugging his hand back to where our bodies were joined.  It was too soon.  I couldn’t give this-him-us up.  “Not yet.”

He gripped my thigh tightly with the hand I’d attempted to move and shook his head.  He studied me with those dark eyes that seared me all the way down to the depths of my soul and back.  “No.  You’re not going to fuck us both raw tonight,” he growled.

I groaned, imagining it.  I’d done it once before, purely unintentionally, so he knew I could, knew I’d keep him from coming until we’d been rutting against each other for a solid hour, knew I’d keep him hard and deep, but I was sure that if I could just keep up the rhythm long enough, I’d feel myself sliding back into place, dispelling the loathing and anger.  This was the price that the Silencer was demanding for the mission I had compromised.  This wasn’t making love.  This was punishment and I needed it.  I _needed_ it.

“Just once more—” I negotiated.

“No, baby.”  He grasped my wrists firmly and pressed my hands to his chest.  “Let it go now.  Let me catch you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.  My hips were still slamming against his, seeking more sensation.  I was abandoned here on the plateau of failure.  I needed him to be here with me, but he wasn’t.  Duo was standing with both feet on the ground in the valley below, arms extended, ready to catch me.

My need for his embrace was just stronger than the Silencer’s disappointment.  I acquiesced.  I chose.  I would always choose Duo.  Blindly, I searched for a way down from cliff I was trapped upon.  If there was an edge, I couldn’t see it.  “Make me,” I ordered him.  “Make me.”

I couldn’t – didn’t know how to – let go under my own power.  I needed him to pry my fingers free from their metaphorical handholds.

He caught my hips in an iron grip and brought me to a halt.  I instantly objected.  “No!  No, you—  Don’t—  Ahh!”

I threw back my head as he rocked back in a single, leisurely roll of his hips and then slowly surged deep inside.  So gentle.  He was always so Goddamn gentle.  I clawed at his hands.  “No.  Damn it, Duo.  _Fuck me.”_

“I love you,” he said, his eyes open, nearly black, beautiful pools of infinity and shadow.  There was no Shinigami in him tonight and it made me feel alone.  And it made me feel cherished.  I didn’t want to be cherished: I’d failed.  Too vulnerable.  Broken, unconscious, useless, weak, weak, _weak…!_

“Beautiful,” he argued back.  “Precious.  Mine, mine, mine…”  It was then that I realized that I must have spoken the admonishments aloud.

He rolled his hips slowly, as if charting me, as if I were a territory he hadn’t already conquered a hundred times over, as if I were giving him some kind of gift in the giving of myself.

“I take care of what’s mine,” he vowed.

“Please,” I begged through gritted teeth, my chest tightening as one sob after another piled itself onto the growing stack of shame.  _“Please!”_

“You’re mine,” he snarled, “and I won’t let you hurt yourself.  Come for me, baby.  Trust me.  Trust me…”

Oh, sweet everlasting dreams of bliss.  He knew precisely how to shatter me and he’d done it with those two words.  “I do,” I choked out, feeling the pressure build low in my belly, feeling the tears start to lick at the back of my eyes.

He rocked me gently over him and I let him.  I stopped fighting.  I was ready to give in.  His grip gentled until he was guiding me with only one hand and the other reached for my painfully hard length.

“Let me catch you now, baby,” he whispered and closed his fingers around me.

“Nugh…  Ahhh!!”  Those callused fingers began to pull just as he thrust into me so suddenly that tingles danced up from the base of my spine, punctured my heart, perforated my lungs, and then shot down my entire body in a hot rush.  I let it burn me.  I let it pour out onto his fingers.  I let him have my surrender.

And, true to his word, he caught me when I tumbled, slumped, fell onto him.

“Oh, Christ,” he swore.  I could feel his heart pounding beneath my cheek.  I was too exhausted to do more than permit my tears to fall as he softened and slipped out of me.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.  “About the raw.”  His skin was undoubtedly chafed even though he hadn’t let me take as much as I’d wanted.

He chuckled.  “That’s what happens when you play with fire,” he told me, nuzzling my hair.  “You burn me alive, baby.”

I burrowed into his chest and he tightened his arms around me briefly before he began to rub soothingly from the top of my shoulders all the way down to the tender skin behind my knees and back up again.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured.  “And you’ve got me.”

I didn’t ask him if it was a promise.  I already knew that it was.  I sighed out a breath and relaxed against him completely.  He would guard me while I slept.  He would be here when my own sense of powerlessness awoke the nightmares of failing-flailing-falling through the infinite, cold, dark vacuum of space that turned me inside out with mindless terror.  He would be here.   Knowing that gave me the courage to close my eyes and rest.


	2. To the Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo’s peace of mind depends on knowing Trowa can take care of himself in a fight, but rebuilding his husband’s self-confidence is going to mean fighting dirty.

Coming back to Clifden had been the right decision.  We’d deal with Egypt another time; we’d planned that op ourselves, chosen to use our vacation time as a cover while we conducted surveillance on a selection of resort owners and managers who were probably trying to smuggle all sorts of nasty things to militant groups around the globe.  Well, they’d still be wheeling and dealing six months from now, so that’s when we’d give it another shot.  With any luck, Relena wouldn’t collect another psycho bastard stalker by then.

And, with any luck, by the time we got another shot at taking those two weeks of vacation, both Trowa and I would be ready for it.

I rolled out of bed, letting Trowa hog the blankets as he lay sprawled face-down on the mattress and I grabbed the pile of denim that was probably my jeans and not his off the floor.  I wandered out into the hall buck naked, and then ducked into the guestroom.  There, I got dressed.  And I thought.

I thought about the night before, about how he’d tried to throw himself off of the proverbial rooftop.  I shifted and the fabric of my jeans chafed against my crotch.  Jesus.  He really would have fucked me until both of us were raw.  I made a mental note to dig out some pain killers from the medicine cabinet before he woke up.

I knew I should go into town and get supplies.  We had nuthin’ in the fridge and only a jar of freeze-dried coffee crystals, just-add-water pancake mix, and some cans of whatever in the cupboard, but I needed to do something first.

We’d been playing around with the idea of turning this room into a library (his suggestion) or gym (mine) or something (as yet undetermined, obviously).  Hadn’t gotten around to figuring out what yet, which made what I was about to do that much simpler.  I took apart the twin-sized bed, stuffing the linens and pillows into the closet.  I stood the mattress and bedframe up against the wall and moved the chest of drawers in front of it.  I rolled up the rug on the hardwood floor and pushed it out of the way.  There.  Done.

Dusting off my hands, I went to make a cup of black-as-sin instant coffee and fetch the bottle of pain pills before going back to bed to help Trowa wake up.

I placed the wake-up aids on the bedside table and crawled onto the bed, crouching over him and caging him in.  There was no quick fix for the kind of weakness he’d suffered, so I didn’t for a minute think that he was gonna wake up all magically better after breaking down last night.  I certainly wasn’t and I’d only been a bystander – to my everlasting shame and fury – in what had happened at the Peace Building.  I was still trying to find the words that would let me ask him for forgiveness for that, but I didn’t really think I deserved it.  Wasn’t ready to hear it even if he could give it to me.  But I needed him too much to sentence myself to a timeout in the proverbial corner.  I had to touch him, had to feel him breathing.  If I didn’t, I’d go completely bugfuck crazy.

“Hey, baby,” I whispered.  I nuzzled his neck, kissed his bare shoulder, and moved my lips down his spine one vertebra at a time until he shifted and shivered.

“Hmm…” he approved.

I boxed his hips in so he wouldn’t shift and wake up to a flash of pain when he tried to turn over.  “Uh-huh,” I agreed, tasting the edge of a scar.

Although I tried to keep him from hurting, there was nothing I could do to dull his memory.  He suddenly paused, stiffened, and glanced at me over his shoulder.

I grinned with as much Cute as I could manage.

“Duo,” he said, making the pair of syllables into a whole sentence.  His brows slid together into a frown of regret.  “Last night, I—”

“Shh,” I soothed, lowering myself over him and rubbing my chin against his jaw.  “Everything’s gonna be fine, baby.  I promise.”

He sighed, defeated.  Well, shit.  That wasn’t a good start to the day.

“We have pancake mix and green-beans-in-a-can.”

“Oh, joy.”

“You think you can trust me in the kitchen just this once?”

He raised a brow at me.  “That will entail you climbing off of me.”

“Yeah.  I kinda noticed.  That’s the one flaw in my plan.”

He sighed again.  “I’m going to have to move eventually.  You can’t piss for me.”

“Well, since that’s out of the realm of possibility, I’ll prove my eternal devotion with breakfast,” I swore and, biting back a sigh, I reached over his shoulder and shook a double dose of pain killers into my palm.  I then dropped them, one by one, into his hand and commenced with being a super-helpful-wonderful Coffee Cup Holder Husband (patent pending), standing by at the ready, waiting patiently as he placed each tablet on his tongue.

I sat back when he started to turn over.  I pretended I didn’t see him wince.  I just handed him the cup o’ joe.  He gulped about half of it down and I leaned in for a kiss.  A soft one, a reward for letting me be an annoyingly and smotheringly concerned idiot.

I ventured into the kitchen to see how badly I could fuck up pancakes-from-a-mix.  (I figured I’d save the green beans for lunch.)  The hot water heater flared to life, humming through the walls, and I deduced that Trowa had opted for a shower.  I took my time reconnoitering the pantry; we didn’t have any butter or maple syrup for the pancakes and although I knew Trowa would prove his undying love for me by insisting on eating them dry out of the non-stick fry pan, I just couldn’t do that to him.

In the very back, I discovered a little jar of blueberry jam and crowed with victory.  Sure, the fruit would be too sweet and mushy and the pancakes would be too heavy, but it was _almost_ waffles with blueberries.  If I tilted my head to the side and squinted, I might not even notice the difference.

Culinary masterpiece ready for appreciation, I took our plates to the living room and set them on the long, low table in front of the sofa.  The sofa had cushions, you see, while the dining room chairs did not.  It was a measure of Trowa’s exhaustion and discomfort that he didn’t even mention the coddling gesture.

We ate.  The pancakes were edible.  The blueberries turned our tongues blue and, when I pointed this out, he chuckled, leaning in to kiss me.

“Does it still count if we transfer the color to each other?” I asked.

“Fine by me.”

We turned on the TV and he slouched down on the sofa, curling up on his side with his head resting on my thigh.  There was a program on about some rare fungus that only grows around the ruins of Angkor Wat.  That seemed familiar somehow…

As I tried to recall where I’d heard about Angkor Wat’s super-special fungi before, I absently petted Trowa’s hair as if he was some kind of huge house cat.

“I can’t stop trying to remember,” he said softly, suddenly.  “I couldn’t find any defensive wounds.”

I let out a long breath.  Damn.  OK.  It was time to deal with it.

I could only imagine what he was feeling right now.  Hell, he probably hadn’t had any warning before that bastard had Tasered him right in the neck.  He might never remember what he’d been doing exactly then, if he’d turned at all, if he’d sensed the sonuvabitch moving in.  I wasn’t surprised that Trowa couldn’t remember.  Nor was I surprised that he kept trying.

I ran my hand down his arm.  If he’d had time to fight back – even for an instant – then he should have had bruised forearms and scraped knuckles, scrapings of skin under his nails… _something._   But he was perfectly unblemished.

I couldn’t undo the past.  I couldn’t rewind time and give him another shot at it.  But there _was_ something I _could_ give him.

“Let’s fix that,” I suggested, sliding out from under him and standing.  I held out my hand.  “Heads up, baby.”  When he frowned up at me, I informed him, “It’s time to finish the mission.”

His expression quirked as he tried to work out what I was offering.  After a moment, he seemed to give up and just settled for trusting me.  His lips curved into one of those damn cute smiles of his.  My heart ached so badly my knees trembled.

“Copy that.”

He took my hand.  I pulled him to his feet and led him to the guest bedroom.

He hesitated on the threshold.  I could see him questioning where I was going with this.  It made me ache even more: I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen Trowa off-balance like this.  I flashed back to the frightened boy I’d found shivering in the shadows of a circus tent and I almost told him to never mind.  I almost herded him back to our sofa and the déjà vu documentary.

But I didn’t.

I knew that I couldn’t.

This was necessary – he just didn’t know it yet.  I didn’t want to make him ask, but I couldn’t force a single word up past my swollen and throbbing throat.

“What is this?”

I had to take a deep breath before I could answer him.  “Last night was for what you needed,” I said.  “This is what I need.”

That was only partly true.  I was pretty sure Trowa needed this, too.  He needed to know that he was strong and capable, that he had power over his life and his surroundings.  We both knew it for the illusion that it was, but he needed it back.  There was no way we could go on another assignment together if his confidence was shaky and I was constantly worrying that he’d freeze up or hesitate.  Basically, it was either this or we were gonna end up hanging up our gun belts.

“You first.”  I gestured and he went in.

I pounced.

He turned, elbow swinging.

I ducked and kicked the back of his knees, taking his legs out from under him.

He crashed to the floor.

I moved in for the kill.

And then I sighed.  Trowa was kneeling on the hardwood floor and I had him in a headlock from behind.  My palm was pressing against his jaw and, with a twist, I could grind his second and third vertebrae to dust.

“Dammit,” I hissed, repositioning my hands in an arrangement that was non-threatening.  “I just ‘killed’ you.”

He bowed his head.  “I know.  I let you.”

His determination to take all the blame upon himself was starting to piss me off.

“The point of this exercise is the exact opposite,” I informed him.  I released him and stood.  “Get up,” I ordered.

Trowa moved to climb to his feet, but even before he’d managed it, I threw a punch.  It was dirty – the kind of fighting I knew best – and it just about destroyed me to even have to do this in the first place.  But not knowing if he was gonna be able to pull it together when it really _mattered_ would slowly eat me alive.

The tussle was just as brief this time around.  I glared at him, hating the lifeless look in his eyes as he blinked up at me from where he was sprawled on his back on the floor.  I was pinning him, just a few kilograms of force away from cutting off his air supply with my forearm, but he didn’t even move.

“Maybe I was unclear earlier,” I allowed, holding onto my patience by the skin of my teeth.  “This is a fight to the death.”

He still didn’t raise his arms to strike me or rock his hips and try to throw me off.

Right.  Time for a change of tactics.  Apparently, I wasn’t fighting dirty enough.

I sat up and then held out my hands.  He took them and I levered him upright.  I just looked at him, not even trying to hide my disappointment.

After a long moment, he volunteered, “I’m sorry.  I’m failing—”

“You’re damn right you are,” I cut in harshly.  “You are failing your husband.  You promised him you’d stand together.  Instead you’re busy moping around, being useless—”

I kept on talking, knowing that the instant I stopped, he’d digest every word and, without context, it would be bad.  Very, very bad.

I pointed to myself.  “You think this is Duo standing in front of you?  Your _loving_ husband?  Hah!  That’s what I want you to think.”  I sneered.  “I’ve got your husband in my interrogation room.  He’s been in there for _hours_ calling for you, but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?  Of course not.  Hell, you won’t even try to get past me and outta this damn room!”

Trowa’s nostrils flared as I painted the portrait of a nightmare, kicked open the door to one of the rooms in his personal Hell.  His hands fisted.  His jaw clenched.  I kept going.

“He’s a stubborn one, isn’t he?  I wonder what it’s gonna take to make him _scream._   Maybe you could tell me.  Hell, maybe you wanna _watch_ when we break him—”

Thank God Trowa lunged right then because it was all I could do not to cringe-puke-scream at the filth that was coming outta my mouth.

He knocked me back and, this time, when I threw a punch, he blocked it.  He swept my feet out from under me and I crashed to the floor.  I rolled away.  He was a nanosecond behind me.

Wrestling with Trowa was _nuthin’_ like it used to be with Heero.  Where Heero was all muscle and tightly-reined power, Trowa was a creature of merciless and furious precision.  I fought back because he needed me to, because – if I didn’t – he’d hurt me before the fear I’d planted in his psyche could be defeated.  I fought back, but it was over quickly.

He slammed my head against the floor and I saw stars.  His hands wrapped around my neck and started to squeeze.  I rocked my lower body upward, tangling my legs around his arms as I scrambled to get a grip on his thumbs, aiming for the pressure point at the joint.  I twisted my hips and threw him to the side, tumbling with him.  His grip loosened just enough for me to make my escape, but I was too disoriented, too slow.

In the next instant, he had me pulled back against his chest, his hand on my chin and his arm across my chest and with one jerk, I’d be dead.  Neck snapped, life snuffed out.  It was the exact same move I’d used on him earlier.

I was “dead.”  He’d “killed” me.  I went limp in his arms, putting my life in his hands and every ounce of my trust into the hope that the Silencer would be satisfied.

“Duo?” he checked, panting against my neck.  He was trying to manhandle me around – intent on turning me to face him – even before I hummed a response.

I winced as my battered knees slid across the hardwood… and then I grinned.  Bruises.  I had bruises.  Which meant _he_ had bruises.

Thank God.

“Yeah, baby?”

He studied me intently for a long moment, just grasping my upper arms, cataloging my injuries.  Maybe my neck was red, but it didn’t feel damaged.  My arms were in a similar state; there were several welts where I’d blocked him or he’d gripped me too hard.  I might get a bump on the back of my head later where it’d hit the floor, but I had no plans to mention it.

It turned out that I didn’t have to.  He lifted his hands and his fingers moved over my cheeks before sliding into my hair, seeking the tender spots.

“I’m fine,” I told him, reaching for him and linking my fingers behind his neck.  “You did good, Tro.”

The pain wasn’t half what I deserved for failing him that day when Relena had been taken hostage, but now I could share it with him.  It united us, stitched us back together, threw a rope bridge across the chasm of his-pain-and-my-guilt that had yawned into existence between us.

He let out a long breath.  “Thank you,” he said almost silently.  Then, looking up at me through his brows, he growled, “But don’t you _ever_ do that again.”

I could see the quiet horror in his green eyes.  Yeah, I knew it’d be my fault if he ended up having nightmares over what I’d said, implied, and tormented him with.  I just hadn’t been able to think of any other way to reach him.

I hissed back, “Then don’t you _ever_ give up again.”  In no version of events either now or in the future was it ever going to be OK for Trowa’s eyes to go all flat and dead like they had.  Never.

“I love you,” he informed me, his voice low and certain.  A soldier vowing allegiance.

“And I love you.  To the death,” I replied, clasping his left hand in mine.  My grasp was unbreakable.

“To the death,” he answered, and I knew – finally – that he was gonna be OK, which meant that _I_ was gonna be OK.

“OK,” I said, and sealed our pact with a kiss.  Now, at last, we could start to heal.  We had something _to heal._   Like any other wound, this one would leave a scar, but I knew we’d be stronger for it.  Maybe I’d finally be strong enough to ask for forgiveness, and if I was strong enough to do that, maybe I could accept it, too.


	3. No Matter What

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trowa reveals how he learned his impeccable balance and Duo finally asks for forgiveness. 
> 
> Trowa POV. 
> 
> Rated M for m/m sexy business and very private sex-ish spouse stuff.

The sound of the kitchen door squealing open and then slamming shut wasn’t enough to make me lose my balance.  Nor was Duo’s shout.

“Are you seriously doing your damn acrobat thing up on the _roof?”_

I smiled.  “Seriously?  No.  Out of curiosity?  Maybe.”

And my curiosity was satisfied.  I’d come up here to repair the antenna that had been damaged at some point during our absence.  I could have used the service ladder in the garage.  I could have trekked across the slanted roof with angled steps and bent knees.  I could have taken every safety precaution, but I hadn’t.

I was standing balanced on the narrow ridge where both sides of the roof came together in an acute point.  The wind was blowing softly.  I could smell the coming misty rain.  I could do this – I could walk this.  Easily.

I pivoted swiftly and crouched down.  It was a tricky move.  One of the hardest to manage on a surface that didn’t even allow for minute shifts of pressure.  The maneuver would have been slightly easier on a wire, but I managed it just fine on our roof.

“Jesus, Mary, and Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Duo bit out, staring up at me with wide eyes.  His hands were fisted at his sides.  I was scaring him.

I stopped smiling, stopped fooling around, and made a deliberate show of descending with utmost care.  I swung down to the ground beside him and brushed the debris from the gutters off of my hands.

“I’m fine,” I told him, scanning him from head to toe just like he was doing to me.  The bruises and scratches and welts from the week before were long gone.  He looked fine.  I looked fine.  We were fine.  “Don’t worry about me.”

He snorted.  It was short, disbelieving, and cynical.  “Yeah, _maybe_ I wouldn’t if I knew where all this comes from.”  He waved an arm in an encompassing gesture that included me and the roof.

I considered his request.  “After dinner tonight,” I agreed and he nodded.

Then the taut line of his shoulders relaxed and he reached up to pluck a dead leaf out of my hair.  His lips softened and curved into a smile.  His hand caressed its way to the back of my neck, which was no longer sore or smarting, and he drew me toward him for a kiss: a soft brush of lips that parted an instant later, opening just enough to allow the tip of his hot tongue to caress the seam of my mouth in a teasing motion.

I reached for him and he danced out of range.  “Baby, you know I love you,” he said with eyes twinkling, “but if you think I’m gonna let you maul me with that crap all over your hands, well, you’re gonna have to earn it.”

I glanced from his wide smile to his bright eyes and felt my grin return.  “Mission: accepted.”

“Wha—oop!”  He dodged my lunge and raced for the nearest tree.

I sprinted after him.

He reached out for the trunk and spun himself behind it.  I was right on his heels.  And then I was facing him and he laughed as he shoved me back before pulling himself up onto the lowest branch.

I climbed up after him, meeting his ascent limb for limb, until I was within range.  I grabbed his ankle and tugged him just hard enough to make his ass connect with the branch inches beneath it.  He didn’t try to escape.  He watched me as I pulled myself up until I was level with him.  Our gazes collided.  He leaned forward.  With one hand on the tree trunk for balance, I reciprocated.

This kiss did not belong in a tree, but I did not care.  We leaned dangerously forward, reaching for each other between our respective perches, and kissed with wild abandon.  Duo’s hot breath branded my cheek as his mouth rocked against mine.  He reached for me, gently cradling my head as he hungrily tasted me, as he dared me to take what I wanted from him.  Every inch of my skin tingled with heat, my arousal building, my length swelling and anticipating my husband’s touch.

“Ever wanted to do it in a tree before?” Duo asked.  We were just a little too far apart for him to reach my neck, so he settled for placing biting kisses on my chin.

“Can’t say that I have, but I’m seeing the appeal.”

He leaned back and crooked a finger at me.  I followed his grin down to a more stable branch, one that would accommodate both of us.

Duo guided me to straddle the bough and lean back against the trunk of the tree.

“How old are we?” I muttered, marveling at our antics.

Duo sat facing me and reached for the fastenings on my jeans.  “Old enough not to give a damn,” he replied with a triumphant grin.

My head fell back against the bark as Duo’s fingers pushed aside the fabric and drew my hardening length out into the damp late afternoon air.  The hint of rain that would be here soon offered a moment of relief… until Duo stretched out over the branch and nuzzled my crotch.

“Nuh—!” I gulped, panted, and then scrambled for handholds as Duo’s mouth enveloped me.  The way he took me in – it was complete.  We were complete.  I didn’t have much leverage, but I rolled my hips and he hummed encouragingly.  We found a subtle rhythm and I managed to open my eyes.  Duo’s hips were moving in time with mine, his fingers digging into the bark of the bough beneath him.  I wished I could see his face, but then he moaned long and deep and I could hear that his passion matched mine.

“Duo,” I mouthed.  “Please, darling, please.”

His lips tightened and he inhaled, pulling me in deeper.  I gasped and he mewled this needy little sound that he repeated over and over and I surged again and again into his hot mouth as the cool wind brushed my face and every writhe forced the weave of my sweater over my nipples and the unforgiving surface of the branch pressed against my thighs, my ass, my balls and—

I whined, “I’m—”

Duo rocked forward, burying his face between my legs and I went deep – so fucking deep inside him—

I clenched my teeth but the scream hissed out of me and I was—

Coming-coming-coming-coming-coming…coming… gone.

“Jesus—fuck—Duo,” I panted, little more than putty as he sucked and licked his way off of me.

He grinned.  “No, thanks, babe.  I’ve got no interest in being fucked by anyone but you.”

“And a good thing,” I agreed, wishing I could reach for him but suspecting that if I let go of the neighboring branches I was clinging to, I’d list to one side and end up in a heap at the base of the tree.

Duo sat up and wiggled closer.  He carefully tucked me back into my pants and then pressed against me, warming me, and I noticed that, despite the heat of my still racing blood, my skin was chilled.

He nuzzled my neck and I dared to wrap a shaky arm around his shoulders.  I was in awe.  We’d been married for almost four years and he still managed to surprise me.

“You didn’t come,” I observed.

“I will tonight.”

Yes, he would.  I’d make sure of it.

We descended the tree and made it into the house before the mist arrived.  I showered while Duo started a fire in the hearth to stave off the wet, grey chill.  He showered while I made dinner – a clear, light stew that made me think of what he’d done to me in the tree.  I was already contemplating how I was going to return the favor.

Watching Duo eat what I’d made for him was always a special kind of torment.  With the first bite, his lashes fluttered and his lips curled at the edges into this tiny, blissful smile.  His jaw shifted as he inhaled slowly, taking in every nuance of the flavor and aroma.  He leaned his knee against mine and I knew it wasn’t just the stew he was savoring.

I fully intended to skip the dinner clean-up and move on to the retaliation he’d earned, but he surprised me yet again by merely leaning over to give me an appreciative kiss as he collected our dishes and then moved away to start filling the sink.

“So,” he drawled as I leaned back in my chair, arms crossed and eyes narrowed with discontent.

Perhaps sensing my glare, he glanced back at me and wiggled his hips.

It was difficult to be peeved when fighting a smile.

“It’s after dinner,” he reminded me with a playful waggle of his brows.  “Story time?”

I drew in a deep breath and let it out.  I supposed it was.  I didn’t want to talk to his back, though, so I crossed the kitchen and leaned against the counter beside him, just out of the splash zone.

“I don’t remember how I got the scars on my back,” I began.  Duo knew this already, but it was where the story he’d requested began.  “It must have been in a battle.  Mercs and Alliance, maybe.  One merc found me or bought me.”  I shrugged.  It hadn’t occurred to me to ask which until long after his death.  “An old piss and vinegar drunk.  Gunther.”

The sound of the running water was soothing.  The clink of the dishes lazily rubbing and settling against each other beneath the soap bubbles marked the time.  Yet another thing Duo knew about me – white, meaningless noise relaxed me.  He’d timed my journey into the past with awe-inspiring skill.

“Gunther was too old to fight anymore.  So he worked on the suits.  Repairs.  But his hands weren’t steady and his eyes were getting worse.  He needed someone to be those for him or he’d be out of the troupe for good.”

Duo nodded.  Like me, he was intimately aware of the fear of being turned away by the group that protected and fed you.

“It wasn’t often we had a hangar for suit repairs, so we’d make do with a couple of tall trees and some wire.  My earliest memory is of sliding out to access an electronics panel on the shoulder of a damaged suit.  The ground must have been seven or eight meters down, but it looked like a chasm.”

I closed my eyes, seeking a moment of darkness and white noise.  Duo’s sleeve brushed mine and I was centered again.

“Gunther would say, ‘No point in being afraid.  What’s the worst that could happen?  So you fall and you die.  Won’t matter one bit after it’s all over.’”  I swallowed.  “His words… were in my head for a long time.”  Right up until the end of the war, in fact.

“He wasn’t a father to me,” I quickly added, wanting to be very clear on this.  The man had never earned the right to anything approaching respect or affection.

“I was one of his tools.  The most important one.  The one that made him useful enough to get paid so he could buy whatever moonshine was on hand and drink until he was on the verge of passing out.  That’s when he’d toss me into whichever mobile suit we were working on – something inoperable – and lock me in the cockpit for the night.  He kept me safe,” I admitted.

“He wasn’t even the one who taught me how to use a knife.  That was the captain.”  And it was the life lessons that he had drilled into me that still manifested in my reflex to reach for a blade when confronted with the unexpected.

“But by then I could climb anything.  I wasn’t afraid of falling.  Wasn’t afraid of anything when I was up high and there was nothing but death beneath me.  I was empty.  It was better than—when the troupe was celebrating or brawling and—I sensed that I’d be safer…”  The memory of raucous laughter and the squeals of the boys and girls who’d been hired as the night’s entertainment filled my ears.  Firelight flickered against tent fabric.  The scent of over-cooked wild game and stale beer—

Duo reached out and touched warm, soapy fingers to my cheek.  I reached up and grasped his hand, uncaring of the cooling water that was dripping over my wrist and sliding under my sweater sleeve.

I finished, “The man was a bastard.  I wasn’t even human to him.  But I was protected.”

“And for that, I would buy the asshole a bottle of scotch,” Duo replied, “before I kicked th’shit outta ‘im.”

I leaned in and he met me with a slow, warm, long kiss.  A kiss that reminded me I was home.  It reminded me that I wasn’t a nameless nobody or a frightened child seeking the lonely solace of a treetop anymore; I was a husband and my husband loved me.  It was a kiss that reminded me I was worthy of that.

When we moved apart, I watched Duo’s eyes open.  He was still angry on my behalf, but he didn’t have to be. 

“It’s all right,” I whispered.  We were nearly close enough to kiss again.  “I forgave him.”

Duo’s throat moved visibly as he swallowed.  “Do you—d’you think you can forgive me?”

“What?”

“I—”  He drew in a shuddering breath and swiped at the kitchen tap, shutting off the flow with an angry twist of his hand.  “I wasn’t there for you.  In the Peace Building.  I—I wasn’t _there.”_

“Shh,” I soothed him, pulling his nearer shoulder against my chest.  “You got me out of there.  You got Wufei and Hilde to get me to safety.  _You_ did that.”

He shook his head.  “I never should have—we shouldn’t have—dammit, I’m supposed to have your back—I _want_ to have your back no matter what!  I—”

“Duo.  You did.”

“Too fucking late,” he gritted out and I not only felt but heard a very familiar self-loathing and rage.  A mirror image of the same shame and fury that he’d shown me how to fight.

I held him tighter.  He didn’t resist, but I knew I wasn’t helping him the way he’d helped me.  The leader inside Duo – the part of him who accepted responsibility for everyone to whom he offered his loyalty – would never be convinced that he wasn’t at fault for what had happened to me, whereas I accepted the truth that it had been my job to look after myself and I had failed.  In this, he and I would never see eye-to-eye.

But then, would I feel any differently than he did now if Duo had been the one in that dark hallway and I’d been stuck behind the monitors?

I knew I could tell him it was all right – I could even say that I forgave him despite the fact that he’d done nothing wrong whatsoever – and it wouldn’t accomplish a single thing.

Luckily, there was more than one way for us to communicate.

I didn’t say a word as I grabbed the dish towel and pulled him away from the dirty dishwater in the sink.  He didn’t ask what I was doing or protest the interruption of the chore he hadn’t completed.  I marched him down the hall to our bedroom.  I closed the door.  I reached out and lifted the hem of his shirt.

He let me undress him and watched in silence as I undressed myself.  Sinking to my knees, I peeled off his socks and tossed his tangled underwear and jeans aside.  I loosened my grip on his ankle and smoothed my hand up to his calf as his foot lowered to the carpet.  He was still silent, still watching me, still wary that there was anything I could do that would ease the ache inside him.

I reached for his hands as I stood, interlacing our fingers, and then I kissed him chastely.  Once, twice, and again…  Placing his arms around my neck, I wrapped mine around his waist. My fingers brushed downward until I was tracing small circles at the base of his tailbone.

I pulled back and waited for his response.  I didn’t ask him if he trusted me.  I knew he did.  He reaffirmed his grip on my shoulders and lifted his face for another kiss.

This time, he kneaded my lips.  His tongue greedily surged into my mouth and I let him have that.  I let him ask.  I wanted him to show me how badly he wanted me to make it right, how badly he wanted to be all right again.

And then I gave.  I gave him soft, sighing breaths and gentle touches.  I kissed and tasted his mouth from every delicious angle I knew.  _You’re all right,_ I said with my lips and tongue.  _I accept you.  I welcome you into myself.  We’re all right._

It was a message I intended to relentlessly apply to every inch of him.  I laid him down and nudged him over onto his belly.  He let me arrange his body on our bed to my satisfaction.  He pillowed his arms beneath his head, watching me out of the corner of his eye, and he let me.  He would let me do whatever I wanted with him.

And I would.

I touched him, gently and greedily, from head to toe.  There was no part of him I didn’t acknowledge.  I loved all of him.  I wanted all of him.  I needed all of him.

“Feel this,” I told him quietly as my hands massaged his inner thighs.  “This feels right because it is right.”

He nodded, allowing me to convince him of that much.  He sighed out a breath and a small measure of tension evaporated with it.

My palms smoothed up over his ass and I firmly pressed the cheeks apart.  “This is right,” I told him, my thumbs massaging the tender flesh on either side of his entrance.

He nodded again, widening his legs for me.  I reached for the bottle of lubricant on the bedside bureau and waited for the gel to warm upon my skin before my fingers resumed their task and I felt him shudder as I massaged him _there_ at his most vulnerable juncture.

I could count on one hand the number of times Duo had asked for this, but he had always asked.  This time, I was offering.

“This is right,” I said some minutes later.  “Do you feel how right it is?”

He nodded more readily this time and I heard that fucking mewling whine of his when I slid a finger past his relaxed muscles and pressed against that hidden place within him that never failed to leave him equal parts terrified and determined.

“This is me,” I murmured.  “This is right.”

“Ye-yes,” he choked, lifting his hips toward me in a mute plea for more.

I massaged him patiently.  I was in no hurry and Duo needed to learn this lesson.  “I want to hear you say the words, darling.  When you’re ready, let me hear them.  Sing for me.”

He rolled his head, resting his forehead on his crossed forearms and panted against the blanket.  “Trowa, ahhh, Trowa.  My—my— _God_ —my husband Trowa.  Nuh…”

My chest constricted at the whispered plea.  _My husband._  I couldn’t recall ever hearing him call me that aloud – as an endearment – before.

“When—”  I choked through the emotion that pressed my heart into a singularity.  “Whenever you’re ready, my husband Duo.”

He whined.  He was probably biting his lip in an attempt to retain a thread of control.  Six nights ago, I’d needed him to wrest mine away so that I’d know it was safe in his keeping.  But I knew that was not what Duo needed from me.  It would be a mistake to _take_ his control away.  He needed to give it to me.  He needed to know I was here for him.  Would wait for him.  For as long as he needed.  He needed the reassurance that it was his choice: he could choose when to let go, that it would happen in his own time.

I kissed his back.  I massaged his shoulders with my free hand and slid my fingers up along his skin, past his elbow and wrist, until I felt his fingers interlace and lock with mine.  Still, I worked that deep place within him, giving him enough pressure for it to feel nice and safe and good, but not enough to induce the full force of his passion.

“My husband,” I whispered against his shoulder.  “My husband.  This is right.”

He let out a shuddering breath.  “This is right,” he breathed.

“This is good,” I murmured.

“So good,” he groaned.

“We,” I began, “you and I – are right.”

“So right together,” he rasped.

“We’re good together.”

“Hnnnnn-yes-dammit- _yes._ ”

“There is nothing bad here between us,” I coached him.

He whimpered.  “Nothing bad.  Fucking—holy—fucking—I get it, baby, OK?  Please, please just… _please.”_

Maybe he did understand, but I wasn’t done with him yet.  I was hard, very hard, but I wanted to be sure he remembered how he was feeling right now.  Warm and cared for and accepted.  I loved him and accepted all of his faults without reservation, but the words would have little effect.  He needed to _feel_ it.

I pulled back, helped myself to more lubricant, and pressed into him with two fingers, and then three, stretching him, listening to every tiny sound he made, from the hitching of his breath to his shuddering groans to his high-pitched mewls.  Then, I applied lubricant to myself.

“This is us,” I told him as I entered, gasping as he took me in, pushed back against me, stretched out his arms to give himself more leverage.

“Us,” he whispered.  “Trowa… Trowa…”

He rolled his hips up into mine.  At any other time, his eagerness would have completely conquered me, would have guaranteed my total and utter surrender to sensation.  But not tonight.  Jaw clenched and breathing shallow, I reached down and stilled his movements.  “Let me show you, darling.”

He could refuse.  He could push back until he was crouching on the bed, until he had some measure of control over this, and I would let him, but I was hoping he’d—

“I trust you,” he answered and spread his legs wider, relaxing into the mattress.

I rewarded him with soft kisses and breathed endearments.  Bracing myself on one hand and the opposite elbow, pressing him into the soft bed with the warm weight of my body, I began to move.  Slowly, slowly, slowly.

Each tiny noise that escaped him stoked the fire in my belly.  My pulse pounded in my ears and my body raged at me to finish this, but no.  Not yet.  Not until he was ready for it.  Not until he felt it deep down in his soul.

“Tell me,” I urged him, my hips rolling endlessly.  His hips rolled with mine, following my lead, obeying the unhurried, steady rhythm I’d set.  He angled his face toward me, showing me everything he felt as he felt it.  His mouth dropped open and eyes squeezed shut and I felt it as he gave in to me more and more with each passing moment.

“Nuh… huhh… mmm!  Tr—ahhh…”

I loved him with my body as each sensation drove him closer and closer to the truth he needed to accept.

“Does this feel good?” I asked him, more confident now that he’d truly appreciate the nuance of the question.

He nodded.  “We’re so good together, baby,” he mouthed in a rush, “you’re so good to me so good to me this is so right so right so—uhhh…”

“Why, darling?  Tell me why we make it good.”

“Be-be-because th—”  His breath caught as I moved just a little faster.  “There’s nothing bad,” he gasped, “nothing bad between us never will be fuck this is so good baby please baby please I love you I love you I love you—”

He was nearly there, nearly at the truth that would help him most of all.

“You love me?”

_“Yes.”_

“You love this?”

“Oh fuck, yes.”

“You love us?”

“Yesyesyes – us – yesyesyes.”

“There are no bad things in our love.  Are there?”  My fingers curled into the bedcovers until the muscles along my arms threatened to cramp, but I kept the pace.

“No, baby.  We’re perfect.  We’re so perfect together.  Perfect and pure and—!”

Ahhh, at last.  He was here with me.  I groaned, letting my control slip so that he could feel and hear my need for him.  I let go, let the passion take me and I surged into him.

“Ahh-hh!”  His voice cracked and his breath broke and every time I reached deep inside him, he made that same hot, desperate, needy sound again and again and again.  My legs were tingling.  My scalp.  My fingertips.  My lips sealed over his shoulder and my gritted teeth pressed against his skin.  Every breath I sucked in was full of his scent.  Saturated with it.  I wound an arm under his chest, reaching up to span his throat with my splayed fingers and he gripped my forearm hard enough to bruise, his hips lifting for every thrust.

“My Duo,” I mouthed against his ear.  I angled him tighter against my hips, sought out his trapped length with my other hand, and closed my fingers around the hard flesh I discovered.  His back bowed and he took me in so deep I cried out.  His head snapped back and a scream overwhelmed whatever control he’d been clinging to.  I held him as close as I could as he surrendered.  Entrusted his entire being to me.

The last of his release slid hot and slick over and between my fingers and I was pounding into him uncontrollably and he was there with me, meeting me, taking everything I offered, refusing nothing.  So open.  So beautiful.   The bed rocked and the frame groaned and all I wanted was this – more of this – a forever of this with him.

And then I was coming inside of him, my hips twitching and breath catching on his name.  A release that lasted hours or days.  I wasn’t sure of anything except that my heart had divided and dived into a pair of alternate realities.  In one, it was _pounding._   In the other, it had stopped completely.

And then everything merged back into my being on a rush.  I was gasping against Duo’s skin.  Tears were streaming out of my eyes.  My lungs burned.  I gulped down one breath, then another, and finally I lifted myself off of him.  He made a small, lost sound when I eased out of him and I sympathized, regretting the loss along with him.  I grabbed for the dish towel and slid it beneath him as I rolled him over.

His breathing was as labored as mine.  His hands trembled when he reached for me.  “Baby—?”

I didn’t make him ask.  I folded over the blanket to deal with the mess and gathered him into my arms.  He clutched me with more strength that I would have thought possible in the wake of the force that had nearly just destroyed us both.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, sniffling through the tears that refused to stop.

“No,” he breathed.  “I’m perfect.  We’re perfect.  Holy— Trowa, baby.  Thank you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, overwhelmed.  He’d never sounded more humble, more thankful, more vulnerable.

“I will love you until the day I die,” I told him.  “No matter what.”

He hiccupped and turned his face toward my shoulder.  His hot tears cooled quickly against my skin.  “I know,” he marveled, his breath puffing against my chest.  “I felt it—what you did just—I know, baby.”

“Good,” I breathed.  I held onto him and refused to think of a time when this sensation would inevitably be lost.  Duo would always be here, a warm weight in my arms that clung to me as tightly as I clung to him.  Always.  I would not live without this.  I could not.

He leaned back far enough to meet my gaze, a silent terror widening his eyes and thinning his voice.  “I can’t—without you, I _can’t_ — _anything, Trowa.”_

I caressed his cheek, feeling the prickle of stubble against the pad of my thumb.  “You won’t ever have to,” I vowed.

“Together,” he decreed as his spirit rallied.

“For missions, for companionship, for friendship, for life,” I replied, repeating the words he’d given to me in this very house years ago.

“No matter what,” he breathed and I nodded.

“No matter what.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this short ficlet trilogy. If so, it would make my day to hear from you. Totally and absolutely.


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